Hamilton Masakadza

The right-handed batsman from Zimbabwe burst onto the international circuit and made a name for himself quite early in his career. Hamilton Masakadza was just 17 years and 254 days old when he scored a composed 119 against West Indies in 2000/01 on his Test debut, to become the then youngest batsman ever to score a century on Test debut. The record was then surpassed by Mohammad Ashraful but there is still no doubting the talent and capability of the man from Harare.

An opening batsman, Masakadza has always been an integral part of the Zimbabwean batting line-up and has batted the team to success on a few occasions. His cricketing career has seen many starts and stops due to his constant will to pursue his studies in South Africa. In fact, a year after his Test debut, he put his career on hold to pursue his education but he made sure that he was still available for the team when they needed him. His next break came in the year 2005 when he played an ODI series against England, where he struggled to find form before scoring his maiden ODI fifty in the last game of the series. Masakadza decided to take a break from cricket again and did not sign the national contract early in 2006 but still remained available for Zimbabwe.

The year 2009 turned out to be a big one for the Zimbabwean opener and in the home ODI series against Kenya that year, Masakadza notched up massive scores of 156 and 178 not out. Hamilton Masakadza has proven himself to be an important part of the Zimbabwe team and will certainly be the key to the revival of Zimbabwe cricket.